Pumpkin Spice Doughnuts with Pumpkin Custard
Fall mornings were made for these Pumpkin Spice Doughnuts with Pumpkin Custard! A light and fluffy pumpkin pie spiced doughnut, filled with a spiced pumpkin custard, and rolled in a spiced sugar. Every bite tastes just like pumpkin pie but in doughnut form!
Servings: 17 doughnuts
Calories: 210kcal
Ingredients
Filling
- ½ cup pumpkin purée
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 6 large egg yolks room temperature
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 2 cups whole milk
- 4 Tablespoons salted butter sliced
- ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Doughnuts
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 3 Tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon instant yeast
- 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- ½ cup whole milk room temperature
- 3 Tablespoons salted butter softened
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 1 large yolk room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- vegetable oil for frying
To Finish
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
Instructions
Filling
- Whisk together pumpkin, sugar, and egg yolks in a medium bowl.
- Add cornstarch and whisk until smooth. Set aside.
- In a medium saucepan, heat milk until just starting to bubble around the edges.
- While whisking, slowly add hot milk to egg yolk mixture.
- Continue whisking until fully incorporated.
- Return to saucepan.
- Cook and stir over medium low heat until mixture thickens to a pudding consistency.
- Immediately remove from heat and whisk in butter, spice, and vanilla.
- Pour into a clean glass bowl.
- Cover with plastic wrap, making sure the plastic is touching the pastry cream.
- Refrigerate.
Doughnuts
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, add flour, sugar, yeast, and spice.
- Turn mixer on low to mix dry ingredients.
- Add milk, butter, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla.
- Mix on low speed until ingredients are combined.
- Increase speed to medium.
- Knead until dough is smooth and pulling away from the bowl, about 8-10 minutes.
- Transfer dough to a container that has been sprayed with cooking spray.
- Cover.
- Let rise in a warm place, or place in a proofing box set to 78℉ with the water tray filled, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
- Turn dough out onto a solid surface. (You shouldn't need flour; but if you do, dust lightly.)
- Roll dough to ⅜ inch thick.
- Use a 3 inch cutter to cut out doughnuts. (You can re-roll the scraps.)
- Place on a piece of parchment sprayed lightly with cooking spray.
- Cover with plastic wrap.
- Let proof for 15 minutes.
- Pour 2 inches of vegetable oil in a dutch oven or large saucepan.
- At the end of the 15 minutes, heat your oil to 355℉-360℉/179℃-182℃. (Total proof time for the doughnuts is 30-45 minutes.)
- Fry doughnuts 1 or 2 at a time, until puffed and golden, about 1 minute.
- Flip and cook on other side until puffed and golden, about 1 minute.
- Drain.
To Finish
- Whisk together sugar and spice in a small bowl.
- Roll still warm doughnuts in sugar mixture.
- When doughnuts have cooled, spoon filling into a pastry bag fitted with a French star tip.
- Insert in one end of doughnut and fill.
- Repeat until you have filled all the doughnuts.
Notes
Expert Tips:
- When making the pastry cream, make sure the pumpkin mixture is smooth and liquid-y. You don’t want it lumpy!
- Make sure you whisk in the butter while the mixture is still hot! The butter needs to melt and be mixed in thoroughly.
- Check your yeast and make sure it’s in-date.
- Make sure the butter, milk, and eggs are all at room temperature before beginning this recipe.
- Don’t have a big enough lidded container to allow the dough to rise? You can put the dough in a glass bowl and cover it with plastic wrap!
- You can actually re-roll the dough scraps. Just don’t add any extra flour! The doughnuts from the dough scraps won’t be quite as pretty and may be a little tougher.
- If dough is difficult to work with when re-rolling, cover it, and let it rest for 10 minutes to relax the gluten.
- This recipe makes 12 doughnuts if you don't re-roll scraps. If you do re-roll the scraps, it'll make 17!
- Use a thermometer to keep oil at a steady temperature.
- If oil is lower than 355℉/179℃, doughnuts won't puff as well. But, if the oil temperature is higher than 360℉/182℃, they'll get too brown before they have a chance to puff fully.
- If doughnuts are too cool, sugar won't stick.
- Be careful to not overfill the doughnuts with the custard.
Nutrition
Serving: 1doughnut | Calories: 210kcal | Carbohydrates: 30g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 8g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 103mg | Sodium: 60mg | Potassium: 105mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 16g | Vitamin A: 1442IU | Vitamin C: 0.5mg | Calcium: 65mg | Iron: 1mg